14.3.17

FREQUENCY, CONNECTIVITY, AND AESTHETICS.

In order to have a fighting chance at profitability, passenger trains need passengers. Lots of them. Enough ridership to generate enough revenue to make the enterprise work. As a practical matter, that means any new for-profit passenger service has to operate along high-density corridors or, at the very least, provide a connection between two major markets.

It’s encouraging to note that there are a surprising number of corridors that might be able to support profitable passenger trains: Los Angeles-San Francisco; Cleveland-Columbus-Cincinnati; Dallas-Houston; Chicago-St. Louis; Chicago-Minneapolis; Denver-Salt Lake City; Tampa-Orlando; Miami-Orlando; and a few more.

Brightline [commencing service in Southeastern Florida] has run into passionate opposition from some of the residents along the route which already exists for the parent company’s freight operation. The residents claim that Brightline passenger trains running at speeds of 100 miles per hour on existing track will mean the end of there [c.q.] world as they know it.

In those days, two flag hoists took care of the pennant races in baseball.

More important than the aesthetics, though, might be interline ticketing. These new train services will have their own fares and ticketing, and on lines where they share tracks with Amtrak, there's the potential for ill will as a new passenger gets on a train with the wrong ticket.

At least we're talking about adding trains to the Passenger Rail network. First get the trains running, then give them free rein to 110 or 124, then tweak the schedules for connectivity, then work on interline ticketing.